


The Sacred Quest For Coffee

by doormakerguy



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Coffee, FKM Fill, Gen, International trade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:28:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doormakerguy/pseuds/doormakerguy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coffee was a staple of Pre-War life. Two hundred years later, it's just a memory among ghouls in caffeine withdrawal. Our heroes - two Boston fishmongers - plan to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sacred Quest For Coffee

"You know what I miss?" Bo grumbled, sitting at the bar of the Third Rail. "Coffee. Back before the war, Tip, there was coffee everywhere. At Slocum's Joe, in grocery stores, free coffee at work and at the garages . . . It's been eighty years since I last had coffee. We've run out of that pre-war coffee, and we ain't getting any more."

Tip finished her glass of beer and turned on her barstool towards Bo. "I get it. You miss coffee. You told me this morning, you told me after we sold our catch, and you're telling me again right now. What do you want to do about it?"

"Well, I ain't sure if coffee even exists any more. If it did, it wouldn't grow in Massachusetts, it grows in the tropics or something. I remember my favorite brand was Maestra Especial, imported from, um, Guatemala? No, wait, it was from Cuba."

"Where?" Tip asked.

"Cuba. You know, the big island south of Florida?. . . Okay, we'll need a map. Let's head home and I'll show you."

"Well, that isn't too far off," Tip said, examining the crumpled pages of the atlas Bo had borrowed from Daisy. "We'd follow the coast down to Florida, then go due south for..." - she peered at the distance scale, then at the gap between Florida and Cuba on the map - "a hundred miles? That's doable." 

"Got a lot of confidence in our sailing skills, don't you?" Bo responded.

"Course I do. We've gone far offshore looking for cod, at least two hundred miles. We can handle a coastal run and a short hop to Cuba. We just have to time it right, to avoid those storms you told me about."

"Hurricanes, Tip. They're called hurricanes."

Two weeks later, Bo and Tip sold off their shack in Goodneighbor, got on the Ugly Duckling (so named in honor of its hideous gray paint job), and left the Commonwealth.

They stopped down by the Capital, and traded a catch of crabs for a stash of guns, ammunition, and armor. "I'm not sure what Cubans like," Tip told Bo, "but I'm pretty sure we'll find someone who'll buy this stuff."

They landed next in Jacksonville, where they sold snappers to a settlement in exchange for provisions and junk electronics. As they closed the deal, a scarred, muscular woman named Gat asked Bo and Tip if they wanted to stay for a cup of coffee at the settlement's bar. 

"A cup of coffee . . . My God. Oh my fucking God. Me and Tip came down here from Boston specifically to find a cup of coffee."

"Yeah, we have caravans from Miami bring it up. The Cubans have more coffee than they know what to do with. Apparently the mountains where they grow it didn't get hit during the war, so they ship it up to Miami when the weather's good. Tip, it's an acquired taste, but it gives you a nice buzz, think you'll like it?"

Tip didn't quite agree. It was powerful stuff, energizing but unbearably bitter. She figured it would be a hit for people without taste buds, like Bo, who was on their third cup.

"You think they'll buy it in the Commonwealth, Bo?" 

"I know plenty of Ghouls who would love it. It keeps you awake, and you can't OD on it, so we can sell it as an alternative to chems. Plus, it tastes great - thanks again, Gat!" 

"If you're looking to sell it, head down to Miami. They sell it at warehouse rates there, you'll make a better profit," Gat said. "And you're welcome."

In Miami, Bo and Tip emptied the hold of everything they had in trade for a ton of roasted coffee beans, a hundred pounds of Cuban brown sugar, and a few coffee grinders.

"This better pay off, Bo," Tip said, strapping down the last few sacks of coffee beans. " I don't want to spend the rest of my life drinking coffee because you assumed Boston wants to drink stuff that tastes like burned toast."

The trip back was uneventful - they stopped by the Broken Banks instead of sailing up the Chesapeake to the Capital, and Tip was glad to see several ghouls buy a pound or two of coffee beans, after trying the sample cups of coffee that Bo brewed up. They made it back to Massachusetts three months after they had left.

Bo was right: as soon as word got out that they had coffee, nearly every ghoul in the Commonwealth descended on their mooring with caps in hand. In a week the Ugly Duckling's hold was empty, and Bo was busy teaching Whitechapel Charlie how to brew coffee so he could add it to the Third Rail's menu.

"You say this bean juice is addictive, wot?" Charlie asked after their first successful pot. "Yer a clever little bugger, Bo, out to get the Commonwealth hooked on this 'ere chem." 

"Shut the fuck up, I'm not a chem dealer. Coffee doesn't make you high, it just wakes you up and tastes good," Bo replied. They weren't too mad, though - they had split thousands of caps with Tip after selling off the coffee, and finally reuniting with their beloved drink after eighty years had put them in a permanent good mood.

Tip decided to give coffee one more shot. She poured herself a cup from Charlie's pot, sat down at the bar, and stirred in some brown sugar (the Third Rail had bought every bag of sugar, looking to corner the market). It wasn't too bad, Tip thought. She could understand why Bo had been so excited to take a risky sea journey for it. 

"How's your coffee, Tip?" Bo asked.

"It tastes all right. Tastes like maybe we can get out of the fishing business, and wading knee deep in cod guts."

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for one of the best FKM prompts ever: http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/7011.html?thread=18976355#t18976355 
> 
> There's lots of good stuff there, go check it out.
> 
> As an aside, I wonder if the Cuba embargo existed in the Fallout universe. I decided "no, it didn't" as an easy way to justify Bo's love of Cuba-grown coffee.


End file.
